Popular productivity software programs, such as those included in the Microsoft® Office® package, give users the ability to make comments directly within electronic documents. The typical workflow associated with such commenting features is as follows: a user authors a document and emails it to several other users for their input. Each of the other users then inserts comments into the document (which show up in the margins in the form of text bubbles) and sends the commented version of the document back to the creator (possibly copying the other reviewers). Additionally, each reviewer might choose to make edits to the document or make comments within the actual text of the document (essentially creating a new version of the document). It is then up to the author to synthesize and harmonize all of the various comments and revisions.
One problem that arises with the current document commenting paradigm is that there are no enforced restrictions on the ability of commentators to make changes to the document. Another is that the comments themselves, even when not applied in-line with the text, tend to be embedded within the documents being commented on. Thus, when the person responsible for creating the final version of the document has to incorporate all of the disparate comments and edits, he or she may be forced to ignore or modify comments that are inconsistent with others.